How Country Living's editor-in-chief, Sarah Gray Miller, overhauled an outrageously dated space on the cheap. (Psst: She shops at Walmart!)

Total Kitchen Makeover

Total Kitchen Makeover

When I bought my house in Athens, New York, the rental unit off the back smelled of cat urine and was covered tan linoleum. Because I planned to use the apartment as guest quarters, I aimed to redo the unit on a meager budget. So I scoured the local flea markets and—yep—Walmart, and persuaded my carpenter pal, CL contributing editor Ryan McPhail to lend a hand. In the end, we accomplished a minor miracle, if I do say so myself.

Tip 1. Let's start with the obvious: Salvage = industrial chic for a song. My kitchen's tiny island—actually a machine-shop table and a butcher block—set me back a mere $25 at an area junk store. The vintage scale, $35, hails from one of my favorite upstate New York sources, the Coxsackie Antique Center.

Tip 4. The best pro for a job may be just around the corner. My dry cleaner charged $40 to turn an old $15 tablecloth into a skirt for this farmhouse sink—itself rescued from my next-door neighbor's kitchen redo. (Tablecloth, Leisure Time Flea Market, Ravena, New York; 518-756-8772)

Before

Before

The old kitchen in the rental unit proved especially depressing, with its scant 120 square feet crowded by mismatched cabinetry and an arsenal of window treatments: Valencias, café curtains, and venetian blinds conspired to obscure the Hudson River views.